Only 16GB Free on 32GB Surface

[wraith808]

Are you fscking kidding me?!?

Surface Disk Space FAQ



So *that's* why there's no 16GB Surface.  I can't believe that they would release this and just expect people to be OK with losing that much space.  They should have to advertise them as 16 and 45 GB instead of 32 and 64GB.

They just shot themselves in the foot before they even started the race. (I'm sure I mangled a metaphor or two somewhere in there)

[Renegade]

If you're mangling any metaphors, maybe switch "foot" to "face".

On the plus side though, you can actually add storage space to it, which you can't with other devices. So, all things considered, you're still pretty much ahead, especially given how cheap storage is. Well, that is unless you buy it from Apple, in which case 16 GB is worth $100.

I'd much rather just spend $15 on more memory myself than spend $100 or $200 more for the device. Besides, having interchangeable memory is even better than having fixed memory.

[allen]

This is the most egregious offense to date, but in general as the operating systems grow it's absurd to market devices based on physical space.  I don't really like marketing these things by one relatively inexpensive component. I'd rather you pay so much base price for a singularly named system (Say Surface with RT), and then you can add additional space when ordering. The base unit has 16 AVAILABLE gigs, add 16 more for x dollars.

One thing that I really like about RT is how Skydrive is integrated. If you're online, it's as seamless as browsing a local asset. I don't know about iOS/iCloud, but it's a lot tighter than anything I've seen by Google or Amazon. Between that and SD, I'd be fine with a 32->16 RT.

[f0dder]

This does seem somewhat over the top - Windows needs to shrink, it has been bloating up like insane since (and including!) XP. Compared to Win7, 8 gigs for OS + Office + Apps doesn't sound all too bad, but it's still too much for a tablet OS. And wtf's up with 5 gigs for recovery? O_o

(That's enough space that it could include a full compressed recovery image... which in one way would be cool, since that would allow you to recover without having a PC available, but is simply too much space to waste on such a small device).

Can you uninstall Office and the other base apps?

[TaoPhoenix]

If you're mangling any metaphors, maybe switch "foot" to "face".

Nah, they outsourced that. They hired someone to be shot in the face when something bad goes wrong.  

[tomos]

If you're mangling any metaphors, maybe switch "foot" to "face".

Nah, they outsourced that. They hired someone to be shot in the face when something bad goes wrong.  

... just had to show my appreciation of that

[Carol Haynes]

On the plus side though, you can actually add storage space to it, which you can't with other devices.

You can with Samsung Tab Android devices - OK you can't use it like normal memory but at least you can add up to 32Gb minSDHC card and use it for storage (not apps etc.).

I'd much rather just spend $15 on more memory myself than spend $100 or $200 more for the device.

Did an interesting experiment the other day - built a Mac Pro Tower spec on Apple's website to get as close to my current hardware build. The CPU on the Mac is probably a bit faster than my current PC (though I am not sure it would make a huge difference) but all the other specs were the same or lower (notably the graphics card was a generation older and the Apple machine had USB 2 as standard whereas mine has USB3 - and a lot more ports! Mine also supports 3 monitors - the ATI card used by Apple only supports 2 and you need to pay £70+ extra for the adapter to do that!!!) and the build price came to over £8000 (yes you read that right) compare the the hardware costs of my build (all top branded hardware) which came to around £1800 and includes addition hard disks and an SSD (which the Mac build didn't).

How do Apple get away with a 400% mark-up on retail prices for memory and hard disks? Why don't they just buy them at Amazon, double the price and give the Apple 'consumer' a break!

[wraith808]

But what I don't get is that this is supposed to be the stripped down version of Windows.  If they're trying to go the apple route, iOS6 takes less than 1GB of space including all of the included apps.  I'm not sure how much Android takes, but I'm sure it's less than 16GB.  And for the price points?  Just having the ability to add space doesn't make up for it, IMO.

[Renegade]

You can with Samsung Tab Android devices - OK you can't use it like normal memory but at least you can add up to 32Gb minSDHC card and use it for storage (not apps etc.).

Sigh... Not on mine... (I've got the original Korean Galaxy Tab 10.1.)

[Carol Haynes]

You can with Samsung Tab Android devices - OK you can't use it like normal memory but at least you can add up to 32Gb minSDHC card and use it for storage (not apps etc.).

Sigh... Not on mine... (I've got the original Korean Galaxy Tab 10.1.)

Sorry - I have a Tab 2

Of course if you bought an iPad you would be onto your third (or 4th) by now - and still no SD card ;-)

[nudone]

How do Apple get away with a 400% mark-up on retail prices for memory and hard disks? Why don't they just buy them at Amazon, double the price and give the Apple 'consumer' a break!

Don't forget that is all part of the appeal. "I bought a new Mac at the weekend and it cost me $8000... yeah, I know, that makes it four times better than any PC I could find."

[Carol Haynes]

Except it wasn't US dollars - it was UK pounds!

At £8400 I would expect something akin to a supercomputer!

[Renegade]

Sorry - I have a Tab 2

Drooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllll...

I saw a Tab 2 in a store, and just about wet my pants... It was sexy sexy sexy. I really wanted to buy one, but... I don't really *need* it. So...

I should just try and leverage some contacts, and see if I can get Samsung to send me some goodies~! After all, pretty much anyone that develops for any Samsung device has read materials that came across my desk!

But man... That is a sweet little tab... I had to put it down quickly as I didn't want to get too badly infected with gear-lust.

[Carol Haynes]

LOL - I bought just before the Tab Note and felt the same ... 

[Renegade]

LOL - I bought just before the Tab Note and felt the same ... 

I had a quick chat with a girl early this year in Seoul about the Galaxy Note. I saw her with it, and had to ask a bit. She loved it.

I've done a lot of work on some of the "guts" of the Note, and man... it's some pretty cool stuff. The new things coming out soon are even cooler.

Basically, the Note is going to take over. The hardware/software integration in it is far beyond anything else on the market. Samsung is going to EAT the competition.

No. You won't be able to do anything like it on your iPad.

No. You won't be able to do anything like it on your ACME Android.

Samsung controls so much of the hardware manufacturing that others simply won't be able to keep up.

I can't say too much specifically as I'd have to go and check to see if it is publicly available information first, and just not that inclined to do so. But do keep your eyes open -- more is coming.

(That being said, we have another 800 lb gorilla to deal with -- I'm not blind.)

[ewemoa]

Do you remember the specifics of what she loved about it?

I have one around and don't find it works well for me:

1. Too big to want to carry as a phone
2. Too small to want to carry as a tablet
3. The stylus integration is cumbersome (e.g. can't press some of the buttons with the stylus)
4. Runs slower with ICS than with what came before -- and battery life is miserable (may be this is fixed now...)

Perhaps if I were the purse-carrying type, things would appear a bit different


...also don't appreciate no external memory option on the SGT 10.1 here  


IIRC, the Tab 2 I looked at had that proprietary connector instead of micro USB -- between that and the Nexus 7 lacking external memory, it got me interested in Windows 8 Intel Tablets

[TaoPhoenix]

This "OS eats up a lot of room" business comes from that MS especially is borrowing code that used to run on Terabyte drives, so in those ratios it didn't matter all that much. Then they didn't strip it enough so even their "stripped" version become X percent of a suddenly space-less object. If Apple managed to squeeze iOS into 1GB (explains a lot!) then yay them, whereas MS has classically avoided really bloody fine-tuning by banking on hardware increases until this time it caught up with them in a bad way.

[f0dder]

At £8400 I would expect something akin to a supercomputer!

I'd have trouble building one single computer at such a high price point, even if I went for Ridiculous Speed O_o